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Justin Struk
Mrs. Johnston
ENG4UE
31st January 2016
Aminata Diallo, the Heroic Slave
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill is a historical fiction about the life of
an African girl during the time of the slave trade, Aminata Diallo. Aminata shares
her story through this book in a very effective manner. She presents exactly what
happened to her during her life and what she went through. As Dub Peterson from
about education says, When you grasp the function of the archetype a character
expresses, you will know his or her purpose in the story. While reading her story,
one like I have never heard before, I made an observation. The main character,
Aminata Diallo, progresses through the archetypical stages of the heros journey.
Aminata starts off the book innocent and in a familiar environment and moves her
way to experience throughout. In the middle of the book, Aminata descends into
danger and must battle monsters in the underworld. Lastly, Aminata is living free
and no longer a slave, then chooses to go to London, England, to help abolish the
slave trade.
The first two stages in the heros journey are the protagonist moving from
innocence to experience and beginning in a familiar environment. Aminata starts
off living her life in her village with her parents. She is young and starting to learn
her mothers skills, specifically her skills in midwifery. This is everyday life for her
and she is living familiarly. She is an innocent African girl who just wants to live a

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normal life. Just like the popular story of Snow White, the main character does not
expect what is to come. Snow White starts off living a normal life until her father
remarries the wicked queen. Aminata starts out living a normal life with her parents
in their African village. The first two stages are just how the story starts out, it is
the third stage in which the protagonist begins to characterize as a hero.
The third stage in the heros journey is the protagonists descent into danger.
One day while living in her village with her parents, white men storm her house and
she is then abducted by them. She is forced to walk to the ocean and be sent to
South Carolina to work on plantations as a slave. This is Aminatas descent into
danger, step three in her progression through the heros journey. She is no longer
living a free life in her African village with her parents, but is now a slave across the
ocean and is sold as an object. Snow White descends into danger when her
stepmothers mirror replies by telling her that Snow White is the fairest of them
all! Snow White must now hide from her stepmother who is trying to murder her.
Both Protagonists share a similar, yet unique, experience during their decent into
danger. It is their ability to adapt to the danger and find their true self in order to
become a true hero, and the next stage is a crucial one in the protagonists
progression of the journey.
The hero is connected with self-sacrifice. Peterson presents, The heros job
is to incorporate all the separate parts of himself to become a true Self, which he
then recognizes as part of the whole. Aminata is starting to come together as one
whole and realize that she must make sacrifices now on her mission to achieve her
final goal, return home and have freedom. The next stage on the heros journey is
one of the main stages. This stage is the one in the way of Aminata reaching her
goal, this is the stage that defines the hero. In this stage the protagonist must

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battle monsters in the underworld. Now, the monsters are not necessarily literal
monsters. In this book, the monsters are metaphorical, obstacles for example. The
men who capture her, the men she is a slave for, obstruct or are in the way of her
path to a free life again. Aminata must rise as a true hero to make it past all of
these obstacles. For a majority of the time, she uses her intelligence and skills to
survive. Instead of looking at situations as a bad one and being stubborn or fighting
it, she proves that she is worthy of living and has valuable skills, so she
demonstrates that. She uses the skills picked up from her mother, many in
midwifery, and others she has learned during her time to survive as a slave and
make a plan to escape to freedom.
The fifth and final stage of the heros journey is that of returning
home/freedom. At the end of this book, it is very clear that Aminata chooses to do
this, but also evident that Aminata is a smart, good person. Aminata ends up
working in the black community of Birchtown, Nova Scotia. She tries to locate her
husband but is informed that the ship he was on had sunk with everyone on board
perishing. Not long after this, a British Naval officer, Captain John Clarkson, comes
to enlighten them that there has been better land reserved for them back in African,
in Sierra Leone. However, when they arrive there, it comes to Aminatas attention
that a few mile away there is a slave trading centre. Aminata then makes the
decision to go to London, England, to speak about her experience and help many
others abolish the slave trade. This is her return home, she is free in Sierra Leone
until she decides to use her experience and wisdom to help stop others from
experiencing what she did. At this point in the story, it was very clear to me, and
the other characters in the book, that Aminata was a hero.

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The slave trade was a very dark, awful time in history. African slaves were
treated as objects and sold in shops, seen as a product and tool rather than a
human. It is no surprise that there was a book written that shares what the lives of
these slaves would have been like, and that book is The Book of Negroes by
Lawrence Hill. The book shares the life of the main character, Aminata Diallo.
Aminatas story started out to what a majority of the slaves would have gone
through, however, her story is unique. Throughout the story, Aminata progresses
through the archetypical stages of the heros journey. She begins in a familiar
environment in her home village in Africa, and throughout the story moves to
adulthood and becomes experienced in the slave trade. She descends into danger
once she is kidnapped by men who send her across the ocean to be involved in the
slave trade. She battles metaphorical monsters and is faced with many obstacles on
her mission to the final stage, freedom. She does achieve this goal, becoming a
free slave in Sierra Leone, then deciding to go to London, England to speak about
her life and help abolish the slave trade. This is a very eye-opening novel and
presents the slave trade very effectively, in a truer manner than any textbook ever
would. This book also follows the five stages of the journey of the hero archetype
very well, creating a rather unique journey.

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Works Cited
The Archetypes of the Hero's Journey. About. About Education, July 23, 2015.
Web. January 30, 2016.
Snow White. Short Story. Short Stories Short, n.d. Web. January 30, 2016